Search

Recent Posts

Archive

In Their Words ... Johnson, Wisniewski, MacKenzie

Posted May 7, 2014
by Aaron Portzline
| 0 comments

The Blue Jackets have moved grudgingly into the off-season. The Jackets lost in the first round of the playoffs to the Pittsburgh Penguins, ending the most successful season in franchise history, one that built to a crescendo with the first two playoff wins in franchise history.

Over the last few days, we've published Q&As with key members of the club as they looked back on a memorable season. Today, Blue Jackets defensemen Jack Johnson and James Wisniewski, and center Derek MacKenzie:

JACK JOHNSON

Question: Since the day you were traded here in 2011-12 – when the team was in last place, the building was far from full – you’ve been almost defiant in your belief that this franchise could get turned around. What’s it like to be experiencing it now?

Answer: When I first came here I envisioned the building packed, the city in a buzz … it’s really gratifying to see that come true. We knew it wouldn’t take as long as people thought, but it’s still not where we want to get it. We know there’s still a lot of hard work ahead of us. Fans should expect a winner here. Why not? Why shouldn’t they? And the bar is higher in the room than it is anywhere.

Q: This team has talked a lot the last couple of days about getting off to a better start next season. What’s the key there?

A: Guys come into training camp now in better shape than when they leave the season. It’s more mentality and mental than it is physical. If we knew the secret (to the slow starts), it wouldn’t have happened the last two years. We just have to come in with the mentality that we’re going to hit the ground running. It’s been tricky for us the last two years. There will definitely be a new emphasis on it.

Q: Do you feel like the guys in the room right now – if this team is kept intact – are good enough to expect a different result next season?

A: I think so. If we would have had a better start, no question we would have had a better spot than wild-card. If we have a better start, all we had to do was be .500 to be better than a wild-card. It was a tough series (vs. Pittsburgh). I think either team could have won it. If you’re asking if we can finish higher than a wild-card and get past the first round with the guys in that room, absolutely. That’s a no-brainer.

Q: Is it easier to change the level of expectation in a losing culture or maintain a winning culture?

A: If you’re at this level, meeting high expectations comes naturally. It’s what you thrive on. Changing a culture that has had low expectations, that takes longer for that to turn around. For the guys in the room it’s not hard to aspire to higher expectations. It’s harder to change everyone else around you.

Q: Jack, this is the youngest team in the league. Can you just speak to the young players on this team, what they meant this season and what they’re going to mean next season and beyond?

A: They did great. They were a huge part of our team. We didn’t treat the young guys like young guys because they were such a big part of the team. I expect them to be even better next year. We know they’ll be better. We all have to be better to get closer to our goal, but they had phenomenal rookie seasons.

Q: How will you look back on this season?

A; It was a great year for fans and everyone out there to watch us come through this, watch us win two playoff games. The building was rocking. But there are going to be a lot more (games like that), better times ahead.

JAMES WISNIEWSKI

Q: How will you look back on this season?

A: I’m proud to be a Blue Jacket. The guys battled so hard, all season long. We had a crappy start, but to finish the way we did was really impressive. Get some rest this summer and get right back at it. When you don’t win the Stanley Cup, you’ve fallen short.

Q: What’s the key this summer? What has to happen to close the gap?

A: Conditioning. We just had a meeting about that, understanding roles. You can’t flip the switch. We finished so strong, and you think it’s going to carry over (to the next season), but that doesn’t just happened. Come Thanksgiving time, teams that are in the playoff spots are in the playoffs (at the end of the season). There’s not a lot of change.

Q: Do you think this Blue Jackets team is under the radar any more?

A: I don’t think we’ll catch anybody off-guard anymore. It’s not a situation like it was a couple of years ago, where you can cheat (against us) and still get your cookies. It’s going to be a hard-fought game every game now. You get ramped up to play the teams like Montreal, Detroit, Chicago, Pittsburgh … We’re going to be in that group now where we’ll get everybody’s ‘A’ game, or we’ll run them out of the building.

Q: What’s you highlight and lowlight of this season?

A: The highlight? The whole season. I love the guys in this room. It was so fun to come in every day in the locker room with 23 of your best buddies, going to war everyday. As a lowlight, I’d like to forget the whole first round of the playoffs. It’s tough because, on a personal l evel, I thought I had a really good year from start to finish, stayed pretty much healthy. I don’t know what happened in the playoffs. I couldn’t get a bounce; everything just went wrong. It’s been hard to sleep. Try to forget about it and move on.

Q: Will you keep that tape (of the playoff series vs. Pittsburgh) as motivation, or burn it?

A: You definitely don’t watch it. It wasn’t a lack of effort, or the will or the want … I wanted to win. It’s one of those things where … it’s hard for you guys to see, but something the puck is bouncing … just little stuff and it looks like ‘What is that guy doing?’ It just compounded and compounded, and then you’re squeezing the stick a little too tight and you start thinking ‘Is it going to happen again?’ Negative thoughts come in and nothing good comes in. I just have to move on.

Q: James, Pittsburgh seemed to really target you on the power play, to take away the point shot.

A: I would probably think so, being top 10 (among defensemen) in points, top three in power play. They have a scouting report, too, just like we have one on them. I felt like the rest of the guys on the team did a fantastic job of creating momentum for the power play.

Q: The building. Did you ever expect it to be so loud here?

A: I mean, 180 decibels at one point. That’s literally ear-piercing. You couldn’t hear each other sitting on the bench. You had to lean in like a whisper, but you’re yelling into the guys’ ears. After the first win, I got 50-some text messages from around the city. It was great.

Q: Is that number … 180 decibels … is that confirmed?

A: I heard something like that. (laughs) That might be the speed of sound or something. This is coming from a hockey player. I just made it up. (laughs) It was loud. Put it that way. It was really loud. If you were watching on TV, you just can’t understand what it was like in this building. I told Jack (at the end of Game 6) that when we get the fourth goal, the roof might come down. We never quite found out, but we did go down swinging.

Q: Were you healthy during this series?

A: Game 3 I had a rib cartilage tear on my right side. It kept me from fully reaching (with my right arm) and a couple of other things. My head didn’t feel great in Game 6. (Wisniewski went head-first into the corner after a collision with Pittsburgh’s Tanner Glass in the first period, but returned to the game in the second.) I said my back hurt so I didn’t have to do the 20-minute (concussion) protocol and go through that whole concussion process. I didn’t feel like going in and talking to the doctors for 20 minutes. A lot of guys were playing through things. Guys with fractured feet (rookie Ryan Murray), separated shoulders (R.J. Umberger) … (Nick) Foligno came back in 2 ½ weeks from a (knee) sprain, which is usually four to six weeks. That’s playoff hockey. It’s survival of the fittest.

DEREK MACKENZIE

Q: What’s your take-away from this season? What will you remember?

A: Obviously we played a great team that certainly has a lot of experience in the Stanley Cup playoffs. Say that, I don’t think there was a guy in the room after Game 2 who didn’t think we couldn’t win the series. I think even before the series started we’ve just been that team that kind of continued to prove people wrong. I think we honestly felt going into that series that we could do that again. I think the take-away is that every play, every period is huge and can make a big difference in the whole thing. We talked about it being a long series and investing in the series, and I think in a lot of ways we did that. Pittsburgh found a way in those last couple of games to kind of counter the way we were playing, and hats go off to them, I guess.

Q: How does this team get better now?

A: I’m sure that in the next few weeks we’ll dissect some things. But the thing that jumps out is obviously the way we started the season and our record when we got into November. If you find a way to turn October and November into a positive, then you position yourself a lot better from the start of the playoffs.

Q: Is this Blue Jackets franchise still under the radar? Can you still catch teams by surprise, or are those days done?

A: We’ve set the bar with what we did this year. The expectations – we’ve got to come in ready next year, and now teams know our style and how we play. They’re going to be ready for us, so it’s going to be even tougher, especially early in the season. Teams are going to be up for us.

Q: This has been a good club – a winning club – for more than 100 games now. What’s been the change?

A: We’ve found ways to turn negatives into positives. We had a young team. Looking back on the season, some of those young guys were our best players. Moving forward, we’re going to need those guys to keep making strides. It’s been great to watch, to see where we’ve come from just halfway through lats season, to where we were this season and how excited the city gets. We’ve already talked about that: what would it be like if we could have a good start? Is that arena going to be like that all season long? I sure hope so. We’re going to kind of struggle with this (playoff loss) for a few more days and try to put it behind us, then start looking forward to next year.

Q: You’re an unrestricted free agent this summer. Any idea where that’s going to go? Do you want to come back?

A: Absolutely. I keep saying ‘we’ and talking about next year. This organization has given me a great opportunity and I’ve invested a lot of time here. I’d certainly love to see it all the way through to a Stanley Cup. That said, we didn’t win a Stanley Cup, and when you don’t, teams want to make changes. What those changes may be, I have no idea. Hopefully it works out for the best here.

Cannon Fodder Podcast

Cannon Fodder is the podcast from The Dispatch sports team covering the Blue Jackets. Tune in for lively discussions about the ta and the rest of the NHL. Subscribe to the show through its RSS feed or iTunes.

Commentary from the Dispatch

Columnist Michael Arace shares his thoughts on the Blue Jackets and the NHL.